


On the Knife's Edge

by Rin_the_Shadow



Series: In Your Own Words [6]
Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dororo is a good bro, F/M, Gen, Hyakkimaru Is a Good Bro, I think?, Kill It With Fire, Lashing Out, Major Character Injury, Panicking, Sensory Overload, Tahomaru is a good bro, attempting to negotiate, discussion of child sacrifice, fear and distrust of "outsiders", fighting giant moth demons, group naps are also apparently a thing now, he doesn't always get it right but he tries, helping with emotional regulation, mild to moderate body horror, more expanded from canon background characters, playing with episode 15, semi-original female character - Freeform, talking down the panicking lashing out person, uneasy reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-05-13 09:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rin_the_Shadow/pseuds/Rin_the_Shadow
Summary: There had been something off about the village they'd been welcomed too. The truth is a hideous, snarling thing, yet the people cling to it as a lifeline. Can the present course be altered, or is it all just ripples in a stream?





	1. An Ugly Truth

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally planned to stay away from canon events, but this particular one was something that I had increasingly wanted to play with the more I thought about it, particularly with certain elements of it.

Things were very rapidly going bad. And if that was not an understatement, Tahomaru didn’t know what was. There had been something off about this village. He’d known that from the moment they arrived. They had too much rice and they were too generous with their food and too confident about their harvest remaining plentiful. They hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of someone else raiding them. Even _he_ had never been quite that naïve.

The story they were told about the temple and the nun had several gaping holes in it. It didn’t explain the stench of oil around the temple, or the fact that Hyakkimaru hadn’t seemed at all unsettled by the ghouls that were supposedly out to eat them. In fact, the only time he’d reacted _at all_ was when the larger, more infantile one had picked up Dororo, and he’d plucked him away from it with an annoyed expression that very much said _this is mine_ , pointedly keeping a hold of him and glaring anytime the ghoul tried to reach for him.

There was also the fact that he’d killed _something_ in Lord Sabame’s house that night. The body was gone in the morning, and the man had insisted he hadn’t heard anything and they must have dreamt it. But if that were the case, they must have also undressed themselves and sleepwalked into the pond behind their house as well—their clothes were still hanging, and the hems were still damp.

Beyond that, he didn’t trust the way they acted so friendly towards them, or the haste Lord Sabame made in inviting them to stay. Because they’d been around enough to know that people didn’t tend to react that way to them. Especially—and he hated to admit this— _especially_ without so much as a sideways glance at Hyakkimaru. Because no matter how he and Dororo knew him, the fact remained that Hyakkimaru unnerved people, whether he was slaying demons or fidgeting with something he didn’t understand or just staring vacantly. People didn’t tend to go up to them unless they had a demon problem, as Dororo put it.

But these people insisted they didn’t have a demon problem. Which didn’t explain the burned temple or the wormlike creature he was _certain_ his elder brother had killed. And besides that, Hyakkimaru definitely saw _something_ on the way up. There was a lot he didn’t understand about it, but one thing Tahomaru had learned was that his elder brother’s aura sense wasn’t usually wrong.

Besides that, Hyakkimaru kept mumbling about a “bad aura,” and any time they tried to ask him if he saw a demon, he answered with, “Don’t know.”

And then Dororo came running up, clamoring that he found something below the storage shed that tried to eat him, that he was certain someone pushed him in but it might have been another ghoul, it was dark and he didn’t see.

Before Tahomaru could yell at him for thinking it was a good idea to run off, Hyakkimaru put his ramblings together, and held out a hand for the youngest of them to lead him. “A demon. I’ll kill it. Let’s go.”

But just as they started to run, a small group of rice farmers blocked their path. “We can’t let you do that,” they said.

“What?” Dororo reacted first, and it sounded like he knew a lot more than what he was saying. “But they were all over in your storeroom! And they looked like they were just babies, too! You wanna deal with that when they get big?”

One of the farmers took a step forward. “They are Lady Maimai-Onba’s children, and we cannot let you harm them.”

“Lady Maimai-Onba has granted us protection and blesses our land in exchange for—”

“In exchange for you feeding them children!” Dororo snapped. Well, it wasn’t like he expected to go long without finding out what the kid had heard, though he hadn’t quite expected it to be that fast. “You’re the ones who burned the temple, too! The ghosts showed me—!”

“They were a necessary sacrifice,” a spindly-looking man interrupted, his voice tight. “Without Lady Maimai-Onba, our crops were devoured by beasts, our homes attacked by samurai.”

Beside him, Hyakkimaru tensed. It was starting to sound a bit too familiar. They didn’t have a demon problem because they didn’t see their demons as a problem: they were the solution.

“So you’ll feed them your children in exchange for a few crops?” Tahomaru knew he was oversimplifying it, but he’d learned this game from the best.

“Not our children!” they protested.

“These were children from the surrounding villages who brought the trouble with the samurai!” another, stockier man continued.

“Don’t be absurd,” Tahomaru scoffed, knowing it lacked the effect it would have had if he’d been in his armor, with Hyogo and Mutsu on either side. “Children don’t cause samurai raids. The demon’s clouding your heads.”

“The children had come from battlefields, surrounding villages. When they fled to the temple, the samurai followed,” the spindly man explained. “Once they realized what was here, they kept coming back.”

“Still, feeding them to demons…” Dororo bit his lip.

The man looked at them like he was explaining to a pair of incredibly stupid children. “Listen, we don’t like it any more than you do. But when you start to look at things realistically, isn’t it much better to sacrifice a few outsiders and live to see another day?”

With that, Hyakkimaru lunged, forcing Dororo and Tahomaru to brace against him. His swords weren’t out and he didn’t seem to be reaching for them, but in the heat of the moment, he sometimes reacted before he could think. Even if he only hit the man, even if he could beat all of them, they _really_ didn’t need the rest of the villagers ganging up on them.

Worse, the man said it like it was such an obvious trade. And it made him sick, because it wasn’t just one child they sacrificed, it was any that didn’t have parents to protect them. It was Dororo, and this Mio he had heard them mention, children who lost everything to the samurai and had nowhere else to go. It was Hyogo and Mutsu, left to die in a storeroom after their village was raided. It was Hyakkimaru, mutilated and left to die without an outsider’s interference. It might even have been Tahomaru himself, even though he left his home voluntarily and planned to return eventually. Because the villagers didn’t know that.

It made him _sick_.

“ _Don’t be stupid_ ,” he growled before he could regain his composure. Then he caught himself, swallowed, and continued. “If you’re feeding outsiders to some demon children, what’s going to happen once you run out of outsiders to feed?”

Something dark passed over their faces just then. “I think it’s best if you leave, now,” the spindly man said with a note of finality. “You could _never_ understand the hell we went through.”

And Tahomaru wanted to argue, but they had already turned to walk away, only a few stragglers left to stop them if they tried to push towards the storehouse. Besides, Hyakkimaru was almost wild against him, and they needed to deal with that situation first. Because he wasn’t reaching for his swords _yet_ , but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t get to that point. Even if he only punched him, he _really_ didn’t want to deal with the backlash.

“Dororo,” Tahomaru said, only a split-second warning. But the kid planted himself in front of them as Tahomaru shifted himself behind his brother’s back, hooking under his arms with his own and curling his hands around his shoulders as he hauled him bodily away from the scene.

He managed to backpedal them into the woods before they toppled, and then from there he flipped them over so he was on top, pinning his arms at the elbows and hoping Hyakkimaru would want to avoid hurting him more than he’d want to go after them. Because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep him pinned if he was determined.

Fortunately, the motion seemed to shake him out of it at least enough to stop flailing, but he still looked furious and the kinds of sounds he was making were only one step away from screaming. Dororo dropped to his knees above his head, reaching to press a hand against his forehead.

“Calm down, bro,” he whispered. “Okay, just take a breath. Okay?”

And to his credit, Hyakkimaru tried to do what he said, but it took him several tries and his breath still shook once he’d stopped tensing up.

“Okay,” Dororo continued. “Now, what’s wrong?”

As if they didn’t already know. But for him to have gotten that angry that fast, there had to be something it was hitting besides the ugliness of the act itself.

“Daigo,” he forced the sound out as if it was choking him.

“He isn’t here now,” Tahomaru reminded him.

But his brother shook his head, chest heaving. “Daigo. Just like Daigo. They’re just like Daigo!”

Oh. For a moment, neither of them could think of any response to that. Finally, Tahomaru swallowed. “I know.” It wasn’t exactly the same, but he didn’t need to go into that now. “I know, but beating up a bunch of people isn’t going to fix that.”

He tried to imagine what his father might do in this situation. Unfortunately, the only thing he could think of in the moment was _make a deal with a bigger demon_ , which wasn’t really an option for them, and besides that, they didn’t even know what they were dealing with yet. (Though since they’d washed themselves last night, he was willing to bet poison was at least part of it.)

So he started with that. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. If we try to go after the babies in the shed now, people will be waiting for us and they’ll make it harder for you to fight. Let’s find Lord Sabame, and see if we can’t find another way.”

Both his brothers looked distinctly uncomfortable with that, but Dororo swallowed. “Well, I guess…even if he won’t, we can probably trick him into telling us about Maimai-Onba. The kids said some stuff, but…I don’t think they knew much about it.”

Tahomaru nodded. “Then we’ll find Lord Sabame and figure it out.” He wouldn’t be able to reveal who he was—he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t believe him if he said it, and if he _did_ , well, then that was a completely separate set of risks to consider.

Below him, Hyakkimaru had gone still, and he wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than shifting and trying to squirm out. “If we talk to Lord Sabame, are you going to be okay?”

If he was going to get worked up, it might be better to have him stay with Dororo, and go to speak to Sabame alone, and that was really not an idea that put him at ease. “Are you going to be able to keep yourself from lashing out? Because he might say more of what upset you, and I’ll try to convince him to change his mind if he does, but I can’t do that if you don’t keep calm.”

If he lunged, or he struck at him, in his mind, it would just prove his point. He’d seen his father in negotiations before. He’d practiced his own enough times to know that when you’re working with a potential ally or enemy, that if you showed anger or fear, you had as good as proven them right, whether it was actually the case or not.

When Hyakkimaru didn’t answer, Tahomaru resisted the urge to shake him. “Will you be all right if we talk to Lord Sabame?”

“I’ll do what I can to help you, okay bro?” Dororo added. “But we need to know you’re going to be okay first. Otherwise, I’ll probably have to stay with you while Tahomaru goes to talk to him.”

Something flashed across his expression just then, as if Lord Sabame was some kind of monster that would eat his brothers the second they were alone with him. “I’ll go.”

“Are you going to be able to stay calm?” Tahomaru insisted. Just because he wanted to go with him, it didn’t mean he would just forget that he’d never actually said he’d be okay.

Hyakkimaru nodded, brows pinching upwards just a hair. It was an uncertain promise, but at least he would try.

“Then I’m going to get off of you now, all right?”

Hyakkimaru nodded again, and Tahomaru rolled off as Dororo helped his elder brother sit up.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. They might not like it, but they would figure something out.


	2. A Meeting of Two Leaders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some depictions of violence in this chapter. I hadn't thought them graphic, but I thought I might go ahead and make a note of it.

Sabame had led them through a forest and up to the top of a large hill. It seemed like a strange choice for a meeting, and almost immediately put Dororo on edge. From the shift he saw in his brothers’ steps, they felt it too.

Before they had gone, Tahomaru had walked them through what to expect. Sabame might be willing to talk openly, but this was unlikely, given they didn’t look like people who should be butting in and telling him what to do. There was something off about him, sure, they’d all seen it when they arrived and Hyakkimaru had stared for the entirety of that first meal, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to manipulate things. After all, the story he had told them when they arrived didn’t line up with anything else. If he was under the influence of a demon, then they might be able to figure out the right thing to say to startle him out of it.

He’d said a lot of other things about Hyogo and Mutsu and political things from meetings they probably shouldn’t have overheard and didn’t really make sense to him or his big bro, but the important thing was to stay calm and let Tahomaru do the talking. At least, that was what Dororo got out of it.

Oh, and don’t get too surprised by anything he said or did.

Still, it seemed a little odd to go to the top of a hill with three “outsiders” who came knocking on your door to talk about the demons in your storage shed. If it were Dororo, and people had come knocking on his door, he would have wanted to be somewhere he could yell for help in case these weirdos got violent.

When they reached the top of the hill, Sabame stopped. “This is my favorite place,” he said, never quite turning to face them. “I have a full view of the village from here.”

His gaze rested over the lake for just a second too long. Dororo wondered if Tahomaru noticed it, too.

“My ancestors protected this village for generations. I was born and raised here, and so here I am. I’ve never known anything but this village. As travelers, you might not understand what that’s like.”

Tahomaru’s hand twitched involuntarily. Ah, so the opening cut had been made.

“I think I might understand it better than you would expect,” he answered. “I’ve lived in one place until recently myself.”

Parry and counter, Dororo thought. Sabame stopped and turned, giving a smile that would almost have looked pitying if not for the blank look in his eyes.

“But you still left. For me, this village is my everything. I want to protect it no matter what. Could you say the same for the one you left?”

He wondered if he knew that he was hitting a sore point. But to his credit, Tahomaru simply ignored his last statement. “You say you want to protect your village, and yet you have demons living in your rice storage.”

“Because they, too, are a part of my village. They are a people I must protect.”

And for a split second, Dororo wondered if they had walked into a bad theater performance by mistake. Sure, he hadn’t been to more than one, and it had something like a stage, but that statement sure sounded like bad comedy.

“But they’ve eaten children and travelers?” Tahomaru ventured, sounding as if he hadn’t heard the people say the same thing earlier that day.

Sabame frowned. Maybe that counted as a strike that connected? “Our village was in the clutches of hell. Samurai raided our village. Wild beasts ravaged our fields and attacked people who tried to tend them. My people were hungry, and stole from one another.”

For a moment, had he sounded defensive? “Amidst this hell was when the ghouls presented themselves to me. I didn’t care that they were ghouls. If we are to live on this land, then I must protect this land and this people. I would give up my _soul_ to that end. I took her as my wife, and they kept their promise—they killed the samurai and the beasts, and our village has prospered again—”

“And yet,” Tahomaru interrupted just a bit too sharply. “You fed children to them. If they’re eating brigands and wild beasts, why feed children to them?”

He felt Hyakkimaru tensing beside him, and leaned a little harder against his leg. To Sabame, it would look like a child’s nervousness, but the pressure would help ground his big bro.

“Tell me one thing. Why do you kill the ghouls?”

“They attack our land and eat our fishermen,” Tahomaru answered. It surprised Dororo that he hadn’t commented on how Sabame couldn’t be expected to know that, knowing nothing but his village. “Rather than feed our siblings and children to it, we killed it. So I’ll ask again, why feed children to them? Were they not part of your village as well?”

And for a moment, Sabame almost looked lost, Dororo squeezed tighter against Hyakkimaru’s leg. Tahomaru shifted in a way that made him look like a samurai lord impatiently awaiting an answer, resting a hand on Hyakkimaru’s shoulder, but the position had one other purpose. It stopped the other party from seeing his far hand come up on his back, adding pressure there.

“They were not,” he finally said. “Lady Maimai-Onba…in exchange for her protection, demanded the children in that woman’s care as sacrifices. Her children were hungry, too. To protect my people, I would sell my very soul.”

The joints in his brother’s fingers creaked next to Dororo’s ear, and he could see Tahomaru’s fingers furiously working tight circles over his back. It was as much for him as for his brother, Dororo realized, remembering how earlier, he’d practically snarled at the villagers. He was struggling not to lose his own game.

“And what happens when her children grow bigger?” he demanded, circles running faster and faster. “What happens when you run out of children to feed them? You aren’t going to have outsiders forever. People will escape. Travelers will figure out that no one who comes to your village returns, and they’ll stop coming. What are you going to do _then_?”

It was something Tahomaru had mentioned even before they’d come here. What was going to happen once the demons finished eating his brother? If they decided they were giving a bit too much for the amount they’d gotten. Someday in the future, would he be expected to give up his own son in hopes that the demons would let their prosperity continue?

And maybe some of that had come through in his tone.

For a moment, something rattled in Sabame’s expression. There was no other word for it. Something rattled. Hyakkimaru was no longer even paying attention, glaring out at something only he could see. Dororo could feel the tension getting tighter and tighter, and he prayed to anything that might be listening that his brother wouldn’t leap forwards. Something had hit. For a moment, Sabame looked _scared_.

But then the haze settled back over his features, and he stood up straighter. “I wouldn’t expect vagabonds like you to understand,” he said, turning to pass them and walk back down the hill. “But that’s all right. Food doesn’t need to understand.”

“What are you—?” Tahomaru spun around, but he had already gone.

A crackling noise sounded around them, and Dororo was suddenly all-too-aware of the fading daylight. And his big bro’s rapid glancing around wasn’t helping anything. “H-hey, what do you think he meant by f—?”

There was a loud grunt and Hyakkimaru slammed into him hard, knocking him to the ground just as _something_ swooped overhead with a warbling screech. The next instant, he’d ripped a prosthetic loose, leaping up to plant himself between wherever it was and Dororo.

“What the hell _is_ that?” He’d never heard Tahomaru swearing openly before, but now the sound tore from his throat as he narrowly avoided another creature swooping in. Some kind of  _moth?_

Another creature dove in—was it the same one? A different one?—and Hyakkimaru swung. There was a _crunch_ of the sword cutting through _something_ , but he didn’t see if it felled the creature or not. Wings flapped furiously as it screamed and garbled.

“How many of these things _are_ there?!” He hardly recognized his own voice.

“Let’s get into the trees,” Tahomaru ordered almost frantically. “We’re easy targets out in the open!”

Hyakkimaru shuffled Dororo off first, bringing up the rear and slashing at anything that came close. The strategy almost worked, at least until one of them simply shot down right in front of them, forcing Dororo into Tahomaru as he grabbed him and scrambled back.

But if it was fast, Hyakkimaru was faster, and he was on it in an instant, screaming out and driving a sword in through its head before his brothers could even open their eyes. Dororo covered his ears to block out the sound as he withdrew the blade. Though speaking of the blade...

“Ah! Bro, your arm! We left it—”

“We’ll come back for it later,” Tahomaru protested. “For now, let’s focus on getting away from here until we know—”

There was a screech and a crashing of branches as the second one appeared directly behind him. For a moment, everything seemed to slow down.

Then something smacked into both of them and Dororo regained his balance just in time to see the creature flying off with Hyakkimaru in its claws. And his brothers could only watch in horror as the winged beast lifted him higher in the air in spite of his struggles.

Heart thumping, Dororo untied the cloth from around his waist, scrambling along the ground for a rock. The makeshift sling might not even do any good. His arms and legs were going numb and everything looked fuzzy, but it had to be better than nothing.

Someone was calling after him, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then something wrapped around him and he flailed against it, screaming threats and obscenities until he realized what it was. Tahomaru was trying to pull him back into the trees, not willing to lose both of them in the same evening.

A nauseating gurgle split the air, and they looked up to see Hyakkimaru dropping from the creature’s grasp. It dove after him, but before it could catch him, a strange flame appeared in the sky, dancing dangerously close until it abandoned its prey and went after the light instead.

“What in the…” For a moment, he’d thought he was hallucinating. But if Tahomaru was seeing it, too.

Dororo’s eyes widened in recognition. “It’s the kids from before…” It had to be. He wasn’t sure what else would try to rescue them from this creature.

But then he shook himself out of his stupor. Rescue or not, Hyakkimaru still dropped from pretty high up. He’d survived some pretty bad hits before, but from that height, he wasn’t so sure.

“Can you lead me to him?” Tahomaru’s voice was impossibly small. “At that distance, I still can’t…”

Dororo nodded, numbly shambling down the hill in the direction he’d seen his big bro drop. The problem was that it wasn’t easy to navigate the trees in the increasing darkness, and if he’d hit anything on the way down or rolled after hitting the ground…

A tiny light flickered a few paces ahead of him, shooting further away and then doubling back and hovering. “Huh?”

When he ran after it, it faded out, only to reappear again a little farther from them. Then it shot out at a rapid pace and he sprinted after it, tripping over a branch. _Dammit!_ If he lost it now—

But it stopped before it could disappear entirely, hovering almost anxiously, and so he grit his teeth and pushed himself up.

“Dororo?” Tahomaru sounded confused. Didn’t he see it too? He’d seen the first one in the sky, so there was no reason to think he shouldn’t see them now.

And maybe they were leading him into a trap. After all, they didn’t look quite the same as the ghosts that saved him in the storage shed. But something about them made him trust it.

When it finally faded, his heart jumped into his throat. He didn’t see anything, but they weren’t going any farther, and for a moment, he was certain it meant it had led him to a _corpse_. But then there was a familiar-sounding groan and a shape pushed itself up.

“Bro! Are you okay?” Dororo dropped to his knees, crawling forward and reaching out his hands to feel for him.

Hyakkimaru winced as his fingers brushed his face. Oh. That wasn’t a good sign. But he nodded, and Dororo felt his jaw shifting as he clenched his teeth and started to push himself to his feet.

Okay. So far, so good. He was in some pain, but he still felt okay to get up. That was fine.

But then he stepped with his left foot and there was a splintering _crunch_ as his brother crumpled to the ground on top of him.

“Brother!”

“Bro!” Dororo squirmed, spitting out his hair as Hyakkimaru shifted to push himself up again while avoiding stabbing him with his exposed sword-arm.

Tahomaru was already moving to kneel in front of him, feeling around to make sure he didn’t drop onto Dororo and then reaching beyond that to feel for their brother. “Are you all right? Is it only your leg?”

He missed him twice before Hyakkimaru took his hand and guided it to a spot just above his knee. Dororo heard him sigh in the dark. “So it’s pretty much gone from the knee down. Anywhere else?”

“Oh!” Dororo pulled himself out from under him and sat up. “We left his arm up on the hill earlier! I’ll go get it—”

“No, don’t,” Tahomaru’s voice wavered slightly. “They probably think we’re dead right now. Or else they will soon. If we leave it, it’ll be proof of it. We can…we can use that.”

Dororo felt something freezing up inside him. They’d have to go back for it eventually! His bro needed that! Wasn’t it better to just go ahead and get it now?

But what he actually ended up saying was, “Right, but…are we just gonna stay here until then?”

“No, let’s…” Tahomaru paused, looking around. “We need to get somewhere we can see better. Get some of the blood cleaned up and figure out what we’re going to do about your leg.”

Sure. That was fine. “That guy was looking at the lake earlier,” he pointed out. “I don’t think we should go there.”

“I’d noticed it, too,” Tahomaru nodded. “So near the lake is out. If we can find a river feeding into it, that might work, but we should also stay out of the open and make sure we’re far enough away to avoid whatever he was looking for, but not so close to the village that they figure out we’re alive. Though we should probably stay out of the open, too, since more of those things might hatch and…” He groaned, digging a hand through his hair.

“You okay?” It took Dororo a moment to register that the sound had come from Hyakkimaru.

“Just…a lot to think about all at once,” Tahomaru sighed. “For now, though, let’s focus on getting away from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because when throwing yourself at one wall doesn't work, try hitting it again a little higher up! Or something like that. 
> 
> I actually really had fun writing Sabame in this chapter. He's like a weird cross between Lady Eboshi and Dahlia Gillespie.
> 
> That said, I actually did read this arc in the manga while I was preparing to write this chapter, even though the scene is largely based off the 2019 anime. I'm trying to work Maimai-Onba's human form in a little more and, since that was pretty much dropped after episode 14, I needed more of a base to build off of, and since my main continuities have been the 2019 and the PS2 game...
> 
> I chose to ignore the moth rando crashing into a watch tower and that setting the whole village on fire in like 12 seconds because I am never going to buy that the protagonists are supposed to have somehow predicted it would do that and prevented it. Like, unless Dororo somehow climbed up the watchtower and dumped a jar of oil he could barely tip, and Hyakkimaru has some kind of precognitive ability I somehow missed in the previous 14 episodes, I don't buy it. (And that's not to say I couldn't have bought it: just have the big one he set on fire at the end crash into the village. Then it's like, yeah, maybe you should have thought of how you were going to contain the thing once you set fire to it.)
> 
> I may not have included much of Hyakkimaru's reasoning for wanting his body back or killing the demons yet, but that is something I would like to explore a little more fully in a situation where he's not being put on the spot in order to be depicted as less whatever in his thinking. I don't think I could have done it justice in this scene.
> 
>  
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


	3. A No-Win Scenario

Hyakkimaru let them pull him up, but he was much less sure of letting his brother carry him on his back, even though he finally relented. It might have been easier if they had gone ahead and retrieved his right prosthetic. Tahomaru struggled to keep his grip with only one knee to hook under, and with only one arm to hold with, it was hard for him to balance things out on his end.

They managed to find a small stream that fed into the lake. Though Tahomaru didn’t want to stay right next to it any longer than they had to, he said the location was “adequate,” and that they would move just a little farther into the trees from there. Hopefully, it would be enough to cover them if there were more moth demons.

“In the meantime,” he said, bending down and depositing Hyakkimaru on the ground at the water’s edge, “we should get some of the blood cleaned up and figure out if anyone’s injured beyond the obvious.”

“Mm,” Dororo nodded. “I got bumped a few times when we were running, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m a lot more worried about big bro getting dropped…”

He let them help him out of his clothes and wash the blood from his shoulders and face. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable having someone else help him with it—his mom had done it plenty of times before. But he had been able to do most of it himself for awhile now, and he struggled to resist the instinct to reach up and do it himself even though he knew he would only cut himself if he did.

But it wouldn’t be like that forever, he reminded himself. He’d get his forearm back—and one day, he’d get his real arm—and then he’d go back to doing this for himself.

They checked for broken bones, too, feeling along his shoulders and ribs and asking, “Does this hurt?” Before long, his shoulders were wrapped in bandages where the demon had grabbed him.

They forced him to turn his head as they felt for bumps, and asked him questions. Did his head hurt. Did he feel dizzy. Did he feel sick. Which made sense. He imagined his mom must have looked for the same things when he’d fallen from trees before.

But then they turned to questions about their fight and their meeting. Did he remember what they were fighting? “Demons. Two. Flying. _Loud_.” Did he know what they were doing before that? “Sabame, talk. Meeting.” And why were they talking to Sabame? “Feed children to demons, stop. Convince him.”

He didn’t want to talk right then, especially not about Sabame and the demons eating children. But he learned very quickly that if he didn’t answer, Dororo and Tahomaru got worried. Why? He’d had worse. Maybe not in awhile, but he’d had worse. Once he’d answered them, they promised to back off on making him speak, at least for a little bit.

They helped him back into his clothes and then started to check his leg. Though he could still do at least some of this himself. He didn’t know if the motions had names, but he walked himself through a series of exercises his mom had made him do back when he’d first recovered his leg, wincing a bit at pinching sensations he definitely hadn’t had back then.

Then something caught and he gave a startled yelp, biting down on his lip to keep the sound from getting too loud.

Dororo caught on almost immediately. “Something hurt, bro? Can you tell me where?”

He put his hands over his ankle, pressing along until Hyakkimaru jerked and answered, “There.”

They hadn’t been able to find anything, only that it was sore and tender and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for him to walk on it. They splinted it anyway, and he bit his lip to resist the urge to move even more. The less he messed with it, the faster he could take it off.

Aside from his leg, though, it didn’t seem like anyone was badly hurt. It had surprised Dororo and especially Tahomaru, who speculated, “Maybe your prosthetic took most of the damage? Still, I’m surprised it’s not worse…”

They made their shelter not far from that spot, taking turns keeping watch while the other two slept. Hyakkimaru had wanted to start making a replacement for his leg right then. It made sense.

But his brothers did not like the idea of letting him take first shift, and had insisted on him resting. Apparently, if he stayed up first, he would simply never wake either of them and try to keep watch the whole night. Which he was certain he didn’t do, but then Dororo threatened to hold him down if he didn’t sleep. When Tahomaru agreed, he knew it would be a losing battle.

So he let them wrap his sword to keep him from slicing himself while he was sleeping, and he went to sleep.

* * *

 

Morning came both too soon and not soon enough. Everyone’s nerves were wired, and the sound of Hyakkimaru’s sword scraping along the wood that would become his makeshift leg did not help the matter. Even Dororo’s incessant needling would have been welcome, but he simply sat there, legs crossed, hands clutching his ankles, and chewed on his lip.

Perhaps it would be better to run through what they already knew. Bring things into perspective. If they could manage to come up with some kind of _plan_ , that would be better, but…

“We know these demons have at least two stages, and we know what the second one looks like,” Tahomaru finally spoke. “Flight capable, intelligent, possessing strong claws…”

“It’s attracted to light,” Dororo added, not looking up. “That other one abandoned bro just as soon as the light showed up.”

“Intelligent, but distractible,” he amended. “And the other form? Was it some kind of worm?”

“Umm…I didn’t see them clearly in the shed, but it’s probably the same as what attacked us in Sabame’s house. So yeah, some kind of worm.”

“Is there anything to watch out for with those?” He couldn’t imagine what one of the babies might be able to do besides bite at them.

Dororo’s eyebrows scrunched as he thought. “Not really…Oh! They can shoot some kind of sticky thread. It’s not that hard to cut through once it dries, but it’s kind of a pain if you get hit.”

“Hm,” he nodded. “Did you see how many there were?”

He shook his head. “Huh-uh, but it sounded like a lot of them. And you or bro would probably have to crawl if you went down there.”

“Hm…” Hyakkimaru paused mid-cut. His brothers turned to look at him, but after a moment, he only pursed his lips, lowered his brow, and resumed his work.

The three of them sat for awhile, letting the rhythmic scraping and the wind’s rustling of the trees fill the silence. Hyogo and Mutsu…how would they handle something like this?

“Dororo?”

“Hm?”

“How did you say the temple was burned?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Victory! The chapter that has been giving me hell has finally been completed! Though I ended up having to re-read the manga chapters to reorient my pacing, since as I wrote this, I kept wanting to speed up and match how fast the anime went from when Hyakkimaru's prosthetic broke. Because I really wanted a scene where they recover from the crap that just went down before they go defeat Maimai-Onba, and if I matched the pacing of that part of the episode, I wasn't going to get it. 
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


	4. Backed in a Corner

This was an absolutely terrible idea, even by Dororo’s standards. Which was probably not a good thing, considering at least _one_ of the three of them should have realized this and put a stop to it. Tahomaru should have objected that they weren’t petty thieves to be sneaking around behind everyone’s backs—though that probably would have made Dororo actually _want_ to do this—and Hyakkimaru… Well, his big bro should have said _something_ to it that wasn’t, “Ah, yes. Fire. Us, too.”

…This was all his big bro’s fault, wasn’t it? And _why_ had Tahomaru not noticed the crazy coming out of his own mouth and shot it down?

Hell, _he himself_ should have let them know what a bad idea it was. But the worse a plan was, the fewer options they tended to have, and that was why he, the great thief Dororo, was slinking around in the same storage shed where monsters had tried to kill him. All for the great wonderful thing known as oil. Because setting more fires was always _such_ a great idea.

But hey, maybe this would be fine. He could just get in, get some oil in the bag, and get out. Dororo sighed. Next time Tahomaru asked how something was burned, he was going to clam up and refuse to say one single word. Though Hyakkimaru would probably end up telling him anyway, if he figured it out.

Still, it seemed like this was going a little _too_ well. Even if everyone assumed they were dead, shouldn’t someone have been around to keep a lookout? He could buy that the worm babies were still out cold from whatever the children’s ghosts had done, but it was just a bit too much that no one was nearby. Were they really _that_ confident in this Maimai-Onba?

He heard the door creaking just soon enough to dive behind the stack of baled rice. He was lucky that they had so much. There weren’t really a lot of other options beyond that, not unless he wanted to take his chances with the worms again.

Then he heard someone breathing heavily, like they’d just run all the way from the burned temple. Long robes dragged against the ground behind them, and she gave a pained groan as she pulled herself through the threshold.

Dororo swallowed. He had a pretty good idea who this might be, even without looking. Why hadn’t he thought about it before? How much help would the spirits of those children be against a full-grown one? Sure, they’d been able to knock the babies out for awhile, but all they had been able to do against that big one earlier was lead it away from Hyakkimaru.

Why had he told them he was fine to go back again? Just this once, he hoped his big bro hadn’t listened to him.

“My…sisters…” the woman’s voice rasped. 

She reached for the trap door. Dororo squeezed himself even tighter between the bales and the wall, trying to make his breathing as quiet as possible. Something was wrong with her hand. She kept it tucked against her body as she tried to raise the door with her remaining hand.

Damn! This whole thing was taking too long! Sweat beaded on Dororo’s forehead. Once she opened the trap and went in, he’d be able to run away. Maybe he could even slam the door on her and throw one of the bales or the jars of oil on top of it to buy some time.

But just as she got it open, her body went rigid. Then she threw back her head and let out a howling screech. “ _What have you done to my sisters?_ ”

Dororo barely had time to register before she rounded on him, sending a stream of sticky threads around his ankle and yanking him forward with a yelp. He scrambled for something, _anything,_ as she hissed and dragged him closer. He reached into his bag and closed his hand around one of his firestones.

With a curse, he hurled it at her, hitting her right between the eyes. Her hands went to the injury as she shook her head, hissing and spitting like some kind of demonic cat. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the bloodied bandages covering the stump of her left hand.

Of course! Hyakkimaru had cut into the second moth before! The injury must have carried over to her human form!

But just as he reached the entrance, she regained her grip on the thread around his ankle and sent him sprawling. Stupid! Why didn’t he think to cut it?

“ _My sisters!_ ” she screeched again, and he rolled just in time to plant a kick before she could grab him. “ _What did you do to my sisters?_ ”

“Your sisters were trying to eat me and my brothers!” Dororo shot back, heart pounding. He pulled at the threads. Strands clung to his fingers, but it broke just the same.

“He was food,” she hissed, lunging for him. “For my mother and sisters and the others…he was _ours_ to claim!”

Honestly, even a fish would thrash against a stray dog. Why did these demons think human prey would be any different?

“Mother and Lord Sabame promised us the travelers…” she snarled as Dororo dove for the firestone. “ _You had no right to hurt my sisters!_ ”

Dororo hated this plan. He hated it more than the other plan, and that was worse because this was _his_ plan, and he was making it up as he went, but still… And it wasn’t like he had any better options right then. But if it was going to work, he needed—no, not the other stone, ugh…

But she seemed to realize what he was doing. “ _You have no right to hurt my sisters!_ ” she screamed, sending more of the sticky threads his way.

“It’s not like I can just let you eat me!” he yelped back, trying to get to the jars of oil.

She snarled in answer, continuing her attack. Her missing hand meant her attacks were slower—she couldn’t cast as many of the threads and she couldn’t pull him in as fast—but she could still lunge and she still pursued him through the shed.

If he didn’t know she was a moth demon, he might try to run, but outside, she’d have enough room to transform and fly, or throw poison at him. Besides that, he didn’t think he could get close enough to the door, not with how she was guarding it, never getting far enough away that she couldn’t get back before him. And he really didn’t want to think about what would happen if he stayed in biting range for too long.

The oil was really his only chance, wasn’t it? Dammit…he’d known as much even when he came in here, but it didn’t mean he had to like it!

He narrowly avoided the demon’s attack and scrambled to the jars, trying to make a spark over them. “Dammit…dammit! _Dammit!_ ”

“No!” she snarled. “You can’t! _You can’t!_ ”

She latched onto him just as a spark ignited the oil. For a moment, it seemed like nothing was real, like what he had done had frozen them. He slipped from her grasp, not because he had escaped, but because she simply dropped him.

Then a primal, guttural howl tore from her throat and his arm came up just in time to block a nasty blow to the head. But she was no longer paying attention to him, instead scrambling to where the worms lay. “ _My sisters!!”_ Something was shifting just under her skin, and a powder shook from her robes—she was going to transform!

Dororo scrambled to his feet and ran, chest burning and heart pounding as the shed went up in flames behind him. He’d done what he had to do! She would have eaten him otherwise! It wasn’t like he had a choice!

“Dammit…”

* * *

 

A growing unease just under his skin told Sabame something was wrong. There had been something wrong since last night, but he had not been able to find any trace of the travelers. His wife insisted they had not died, but he had not been able to find any trace of them.

One of his daughters had come to him—why shouldn’t he think of them as his daughters? They were Maimai-Onba’s children, and she was his wife. As her husband, was it not natural to think of them as his children?

One of his daughters had come to him, her hand bleeding and all but gone, raging that she had been robbed of her prey. A spirit had lured her away before she could eat him. But when he had cut into her legs in her other form, she had dropped him from a great height. He would not be able to go far.

She had wanted to hunt him that morning. It was her right. His father had given him over to her mother, and that, by extension, meant that he belonged to her daughters to consume. Furthermore, he had killed one of her sisters in the struggle, and it was her right to take revenge.

And though Sabame felt grief that another of his daughters had been taken from him, a greater part of him felt that he should defend the ones he had left. He insisted that she rest in his house and allow him to wrap her hand. She was still upset from the battle itself, and in her human form, her injury was far more serious. He would search for the travelers and bring the one who had hurt his daughter and killed her sisters before her, to allow her revenge as she pleased.

And yet, he had been unable to find them. When his wife returned to him that day, he had told her what his daughter had told him. She was also grieved that the monster boy had now killed two of her daughters, and wounded a third, and wanted to plan her revenge.

“If he had not left, I would have told you to give him poison,” she murmured against him. “It might not have killed him—if the Twelfth was unable to, he might survive it as well—but it would have slowed him down enough…”

And now, remembering that conversation, he knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. His daughter had gone to check on her youngest sisters. Why hadn’t she returned?

He stood and ran, barely registering anything until he arrived at the burning storage shed. Several of his villagers had gathered around it. When he focused, he could even recognize some of them—Takeshi, old Seiji…Strange. He knew them. He ought to be able to recall…

“Lord Sabame!” One of the villagers turned to him. “Our food supply for winter…”

“Lord Sabame, do something!” someone else cried.

Yet it was as though he could not understand what they were saying. The rice was inside there. But…

 _My daughters!_ He could not tell if he had said it aloud, but he rushed towards the burning shed, reaching for the door even as it scorched his fingers. _My daughters!_

“What are you doing? You’ll get yourself killed!” A set of arms wrapped around him, then a second, and third as his villagers hauled him back.

But even though a part of him knew they were right, he still struggled against them. His daughters were in there! Why didn’t they understand what he had to do?

Worse, where was his wife? Where was she? Had she gone in before him? But he would surely have known if that were the case…

Still, the villagers held him back, refusing to let him enter the shed. Where was Maimai-Onba? If anything happened to her…

There was something else wrong, too. But he couldn't put his finger on it. But...a leader should be able to identify these things, shouldn't he? Why couldn't he figure out what it was?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting this chapter started was a lot more difficult than it should have been, in part because balancing this with my summer courses caused me to go into a Block. But I had a lot of fun writing Sabame's section of the chapter and imagining how his thought process is working at this point in time. 
> 
> Many thanks to fetuscakes for helping me come up with some of the elements, particularly around Maimai-Onba's clan and Sabame's relationship to her. There's one more scene that's going to be a bit of a hurdle to jump over in execution, but I have a pretty clear idea of what all I want to happen now, so...
> 
> The group's solution and what ultimately ends up happening in this chapter is somewhat based on the "Hell Screen" chapter of the manga. I didn't quite get human form Maimai-Onba in as much as I wanted here, but I figured I could at least have one of her daughters in the meantime.
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


	5. From Hell's Heart

Something was wrong. Which, admittedly, probably shouldn’t have surprised him at this point, but Tahomaru would have liked to have had some assurance that things would work the way he planned them to.

At several points, he considered that the something wrong might have had something to do with Hyakkimaru. He’d seemed fine earlier, but that didn’t mean something couldn’t come up. Though with that, there were at least some things he could do to mitigate his concern.

“Do you remember what happened last night?”

From where he was trying to tie a (thankfully unlit) torch to the front of a boat, Hyakkimaru froze, staring straight ahead as his mouth pressed into a thin line. Without a word, he went back to work. Well, at least he remembered enough to get annoyed by it, which probably should have alleviated the pounding feeling radiating up to his eye at least a little bit.

“Brother, please.” He winced at the rise in his own voice.

That stopped him, and he limped over, using the edge of the boat to avoid stepping on his splinted ankle. His fingers brushed the left side of Tahomaru’s face as he leaned in to touch their foreheads together. For a moment, it almost felt like that would be enough, but it didn’t quite manage to squash the anxiety welling up in him.

“Hyakkimaru, please, just tell me what happened last night,” he insisted, bringing his hands up to his brother’s back.

He half-expected to hear an annoyed sigh. Instead, he felt Hyakkimaru’s brow shift against his forehead. “Meeting with Sabame. Two demons, flying. We escape. You help me. This,” tapping his prosthetic leg, “break. We sleep. I make this. Dororo, find this. My arm.”

“Good,” Tahomaru sighed, not quite relieved, but at least that concern was out of the way.

“I seem worse, before?”

“No, brother,” he answered, lightly nuzzling against his forehead. “You don’t seem worse than before. There’s just a lot to worry about.”

“Dororo?”

“Yes, like Dororo.” If he was honest with himself, he still wasn’t quite certain of sending Dororo off on his own. It had been bad enough when he’d gone to get Hyakkimaru’s sheath arm—and trying to keep his brother from running after him on his ankle was significantly harder than it should have been—but sending the kid back to the same place where he’d nearly been eaten…

Sometimes, he wondered if he was really any different from his father.

He startled at the feel of a hand running over his back, repeating large, slow circles before coming to rest near his shoulder. Of course, he thought, forcing himself to breathe.

“It’ll be okay.”

A smile tugged at his lip. “You learned that from Dororo.” He’d even had his inflections just then.

Hyakkimaru nodded, standing to return to his work, when he paused, suddenly on alert. His eyes scanned the surrounding trees before he wrapped both arms around Tahomaru and pulled him down inside of the boat, shifting so he was on top and covering his head.

It was probably safe to assume it wasn’t Dororo. But if the demon was a moth, what would hiding in the boat do but get him snatched up again?

 _You think he doesn’t know that?_ The thought came unbidden to him and he felt his heart pounding at the thought. Without Dororo there, would the ghost children aid them again?

He felt Hyakkimaru’s fingers move across the back of his head, and then a quick, near-silent tap to the floor of the boat near his head.

Then, he shifted, and Tahomaru turned to pull him back down just a second too late. He shouldn’t have been able to get out of the boat so fast, especially not on one makeshift prosthetic and one bad ankle. Damn. He should have known he would try something like that.

 

“I have to admit, I appreciate you revealing yourself to me willingly. It allows us to skip all this pointless cat and mouse business, and after all the trouble you’ve caused to my clan…”

Tahomaru would remain quiet inside the boat until he could fight this demon back. Hyakkimaru was certain of it. He’d seen him fight enough of them that he had to understand by now what they were up against. Even if her shape was human, her soul was blood red—even if Tahomaru couldn’t see that, he at least knew what the others were like.

“You’ve murdered two of my children, and you’ve caused quite a bit of turmoil for my husband.” Her voice morphed into a low snarl and Hyakkimaru tensed, bringing his arm to his mouth and catching the wraps in his teeth.

A second later, she surged forward, forcing him to duck to one side as he ripped his sword loose from his forearm. She was fast, probably faster than him. But the red of her soul was dangerously bright, flashing like that alone could tear his body apart. And maybe that wild flashing would make her slower—no. Clumsier.

She turned on her heels and shot out a stream of threads which he barely managed to avoid. Not good. He needed her after him if he was going to get her away from Tahomaru. He hopped back, then rushed towards her when she didn’t follow.

She wanted to kill him, right? She said he caused trouble, and him stepping out made things easier. She tried to feed him to her children twice. That meant she wanted to kill him, right?

“Your kind always see things so simply,” she said, nearly catching him in the fold of her cloak and forcing him to drop and roll to avoid it. “You see a demon and you try to kill it. But I am the guardian of this village and mother to my children! I have something I protect!”

He pressed a sleeve to his mouth to avoid inhaling the cloud of poison dust.

“What does someone like you know of protection? You, who _exist_ only to be discarded and consumed!”

Something caught and he stumbled, wincing as his ankle protested his efforts to right himself. This time, the stream stuck onto his shoulder, yanking him forward.

His makeshift prosthetic did little to help him brace. He really should have taken the time to make a better base for it. Alarm spiked through him and he brought his arms up just in time to stop her from wrapping her hands around his neck.

“Can you even _begin_ to understand what I do for my children?” she hissed.

She made to grab at his throat again and he swung with his sword arm, pushing himself up and grinding his teeth as he put entirely too much weight on his ankle. It didn’t matter. He just had to survive this.

Tahomaru. Where was he? Did he get out? Was Dororo okay?

The demon lunged for him, only just managing to avoid the thrust of his sword.

Something was shifting just inside the border of her aura. Hyakkimaru lunged. Then he felt the particles drifting in the air. Poison!

He staggered back, struggling to stay upright. If he fell as she transformed, it was over.

The demon swooped and he darted to one side, slashing in case her claws were grabbing for him. His back already smarted from where the other one had grabbed him. He did not want another wound on top of that.

Maimai-Onba let out a piercing screech, and he nearly stumbled despite standing upright, resisting the urge to clamp his hands over his ears even though he knew he would have cut himself. He ducked just in time to avoid a swipe of her claws.

He thought he heard someone cry out. For him or for her?

If another demon showed up, he didn’t think he could handle both at once. Not with both of them swooping and screeching and his ankle pinching every time he stepped on it.

He heard the raspy snarl a second before the stream shot out.

 

As Dororo slumped against a tree, bag of oil still tight against his chest, his lungs burned. He couldn’t tell if his legs were shaking from running so far so fast, or because what he had done was sinking in.

Why was he even questioning it? She tried to kill him. She said his big bro was demon food and they didn’t have the right to resist.

He felt tears burning just behind closed eyes. He only did what he had to do! It wasn’t his fault big bro’s father tried to feed him to the demons! He deserved to live too!

“Dororo?” He nearly took off the hand resting on his shoulder before he recognized its owner.

“Tahomaru?”

He cast a glance over to the shore. “Maimai-Onba figured us out. Hyakkimaru’s fighting her near the boat.” His voice wavered and he struggled to even it out. “I don’t think it’s going well. We need…we need to come up with something.”

Dororo nodded and held up the bag. “Can we still use this?”

Tahomaru thought, chewing the inside of his cheek and flinching as a shriek pierced the air. “The boat. He tied the torch on just before he pulled me into the boat. I don’t know if he can lead her over the lake now, but…”

There was a vicious cry which Dororo recognized all too well, and their heads jerked up just in time to see Hyakkimaru’s left prosthetic go flying.

Dammit. Why had he felt bad when he thought she was dead again? But she was fighting sloppy. Even from here, he could see where her cloak had scorched.

It was too bad his bro’s aura sense didn’t make him a mind-reader. This plan would be so much easier if they could just tell him what they were doing. As things were, they watched and waited, Tahomaru’s hand on Dororo’s back in a way that would have been really annoying any other time. It wasn’t like he couldn’t figure out where to run.

The smaller of the two demons launched herself at Hyakkimaru, who somehow managed to flip himself onto its back as it flapped and struggled under his weight. It must have been different when your prey was on top… A vicious trilling sound rippled through the air, and the demon’s uneven flight took them over the water.

Dororo’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. “She’s gonna drop him into the lake!” He didn’t know if he’d spoken out loud or not.

But Tahomaru didn’t answer him, instead pushing him forwards. “Go!” he hissed.

And he knew they should probably go straight for the boat, but he still darted out to grab his bro’s arms first. Tahomaru would scold him later, but he wasn’t going to risk his being without them if things went bad.

As they were now, Tahomaru climbed into the back, manning the oar. “I’ll steer us. Point me where I need to go.”

So he did, shouting out right or left, struggling to light the torch. He couldn’t tell where Hyakkimaru was in all this, if he was still hanging on to the smaller one or if he’d leapt onto the bigger one—probably Maimai-Onba. But the one thing he knew was that he hadn’t seen him hit the water.

His heart was pounding and his hands were clumsier because of it. Tahomaru nearly let go of the oar to come and steady his hands, when they saw the smaller of the moths drop.

Had Hyakkimaru fallen with it? The smell of blood hung in the air—but they couldn’t tell what color in the dark. It didn’t smell right to Dororo, so maybe that meant it wasn’t Hyakkimaru’s?

Moments later, Maimai-Onba gave an unholy screech and dove in after them. When no one came back up, the two shared a look of horror.

“She’s trying to drown him!”

Tahomaru grabbed Dororo’s hands and together, they struck the torch. “Hold it out! Use the light to lure her up!”

 _Shut up!_ Dororo wanted to scream, even though it wasn’t Tahomaru’s fault and it wouldn’t do any good.

The water rippled and they barely managed to avoid dropping the torch as Maimai-Onba rose from the depths, groaning and terrible as anything from any of their nightmares. The fire was drawing her in, but she resisted it.

And if Dororo could actually think of words right now, he’d definitely have something to say to that. But as things were, he didn’t trust himself not to accidentally puke up his heart.

Something else broke the water and Tahomaru rushed to the side of the boat. Then he was reaching for something, pulling it up to hook over the side—bro!

Still, this was no time to start celebrating. Maimai-Onba still inched steadily closer in spite of her struggles and her terrible squalling.

 _“Tahomaru!_ ” he managed to cry out. Then he heard the _clink_ of a prosthetic sliding into place and he felt the boat rock as he moved.

“Move!” he heard the cry only a second before he ducked to one side, shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the hellish image unfolding in front of him.

He heard the crackle of the flames and the bloodcurdling, pained wails of the demon before them. Then Tahomaru had taken the torch, letting him curl completely in on himself.

The screams continued for what felt like hours. When they finally stopped, Dororo dared to open his eyes just in time to see her drop.

There was a warning call which he couldn’t identify but which sounded like it might have come from Hyakkimaru, and then water washed over the boat and Tahomaru fell.

Somehow, he managed to catch himself and avoid toppling over, but he lost his torch in the lake. That was fine. Dororo didn’t want to see it right now anyway. He sat there, shaking, as Tahomaru reached again, catching Hyakkimaru under the arms and pulling him in with them.

It was only as he slid the remaining prosthetic back over his big bro’s arm that he realized they were shaking too.

“C’mon…” He scarcely recognized his own voice. “Let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, I actually pulled a lot of inspiration from some of the later battles in the stage play, as well as the original manga and a little bit from the video game. Having the moth daughter survive and take part in the battle was not something I had planned in my first draft of this chapter, where she was not present, but I liked how many of the fights in the stage play involved Hyakkimaru fighting multiple demonic entities. That was something I had been toying with, but never quite got around to putting in any of my fics before.
> 
> Part of the changes were also because quite a few things I set up from previous chapters kinda ended up going nowhere and doing nothing, and because it started to feel like I was pushing too close to the original episode 15. There were definitely things I wanted to keep from it, but I didn't want to wind up simply replicating it. 
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


	6. Regaining What's Yours

Hyakkimaru had wanted to take his position with the oar, steering them back, but Tahomaru insisted otherwise. “You had a long fight, and you were hurt even before that. Besides,” he lowered his voice just a little. “I think Dororo needs you right now.”

At that, he turned to look at him. The little soul was still curled in the bottom of the boat, trembling. Because he was cold or because he was afraid? He knelt down next to Dororo, easing himself gingerly as his leg protested the motion, and rested a hand on his shoulder.

Dororo flinched. Oh. Was that something he wasn’t supposed to do? But when he started to pull away, Dororo made a keening sound and latched onto his arm with both hands.

As he whimpered, there were so many things Hyakkimaru wanted to say. _It’s okay, Dororo_. Even though it wasn’t, because if it was, he wouldn’t be crying right now. _I’m sorry._ He didn’t mean to scare him. He wouldn’t do it again. Except that if he hadn’t, one of them might have died. _What’s wrong?_ That might actually have been better. They always asked him what was wrong if they didn’t know, or sometimes even if they thought they did.

“What’s…wrong, Dororo?” The words pushed themselves out, rough against his throat.

Dororo only shook his head, pressing tighter against him. He felt Tahomaru shift behind them, not just to steer the boat. “You’ve never done something like this before, have you, Dororo?” His voice came up quiet, like he wasn’t sure whether he belonged in this conversation.

Oh. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Dororo had been with him for many of his fights against the demons. He’d even tied himself onto one in one of the most nerve-wracking battles of his life. He’d thrown rocks and insults at humans, and could steal as easily as he breathed. But he’d never actually killed a demon before, had he? Especially not one that could take a human form.

He didn’t know what to say to that. When he had killed his first, he had only known the red aura, that something was wrapping around him, pulling him in, so that if he hadn’t killed it, he would have died. His mom had killed some, too, to keep them off of him. So clearly they were bad. But now that he thought about it, had Dororo even seen a demon before meeting him?

Maybe it would be better to talk later, after he had calmed down. So instead, he moved to hold Dororo against him, letting him lie there until he started squirming and mumbled, “Geez, bro. You’re all sopping wet! You’re gonna get us sick!”

Still, he didn’t move to pull away until they bumped against the shore. Tahomaru stood and climbed out. “We should probably put some distance between us and this place.”

Dororo mumbled something about needing to steal blankets, and then turned to follow him. Hyakkimaru started to push himself up, but he felt little hands against his chest. “Hang on…how’s your foot? Are you okay to climb out? Should we help you?”

He started to nod, “Mm. I’m fine.” Which of course, made Tahomaru’s aura spike with alarm and rush around and hold out his hands for him.

“Still,” he insisted. “You shouldn’t put too much weight on it. You can decide to walk or not once you’re out, but can I at least help you out of the boat?”

There wasn’t much reason to argue, especially since it _did_ sting a bit as he pushed himself up. He nodded and let Tahomaru take part of his weight as he lifted himself over the side. This wasn’t so bad.

But then his foot brushed the earth and he winced, toppling over even as he tried to right himself. His ankle was definitely worse now. He _really_ should have taken the time to make a proper foot for his prosthetic. Then he could have balanced on it better. From his position on the ground, he tried to shift, putting his weight mostly on his knee, but he could already feel something building in his body, and only managed to drag himself the slightest bit further before it started concentrating itself in his back, making him squirm in discomfort.

He felt Tahomaru and Dororo grab him around his waist and pull him away from the lapping water only a second before pain exploded through his system and he seized and cried out.

“Ah! Bro, did we hurt…” Dororo gasped as he realized what was happening.

Tahomaru knelt beside him, running a hand along his back as he had so many times before. And Hyakkimaru wanted that comfort. He really did. But right now his touch was like pins and needles stabbing into his shoulders, and his arm swung to bat away the suddenly painful touch, a strained whine escaping him.

“Brother, I…” He wanted to apologize. It wasn’t Tahomaru’s fault. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was usually something he liked. He hadn’t meant to take a swing at him. He was supposed to be worrying about Dororo right now anyway. But the only sound that would come was a scream that tore itself from his throat, which he tried to bite back because it was making his ears ring in addition to everything else that already hurt.

He dug his forehead into the ground below, feeling his eyes squeeze shut at the bumpiness and the gravel digging into his skin. His arms felt wrong against his shoulders and his leg was digging into his thigh and the splint felt horrible but moving at all was making his ankle throb and his back was already throbbing. Worse, he couldn’t remember the last time it had been this bad. His ears were awful once he got them, and pain had been unpleasant to say the least. But now, all he could do was bite back screams as something formed _inside of him_ , and whatever it was, it was radiating hurt to his whole body.

And then he felt his back arch and his clothes pull tight against it as something pushed out of him and he dropped. A line of round things rolled off of him like tiny spiders, biting before they slid to the ground. He forced himself to breathe through clenched teeth as tears slipped from his eye sockets. It was over, but his back still felt raw and tender, and he just wanted it to stop.

He was dimly aware of a retching sound a slight ways away. Ah, yes. Tahomaru had never seen him get a body part back before. It must have been as bad as it felt, then. And Dororo was…

“You okay, bro?” Dororo whispered, kneeling beside him and fumbling through the cloth bag at his waist. He heard him pull something from it, rather than seeing it. He didn’t trust himself to turn his head without it hurting just yet.

A second later, he felt a tugging at his clothing and he jerked, swinging a hand to warn him away. The back must have ripped out when his real spine grew in, and he probably needed to let Dororo fix it. He just didn’t think he could handle the touch if he brushed against him. Not yet.

Hyakkimaru let himself fall onto his side and curled his knees up as much as he could without it pulling at the skin of his back, and brought his hands up to his ears. It wouldn’t help, not when the problem wasn’t just sound, but…it felt familiar, at least. He really hoped this wouldn’t be permanent.

 

Dororo watched as his big bro slumped onto his side and grew still. That had been a really bad one. He wanted to tell him it would get better, like it had with pain and hearing, but if his hands were over his ears, it probably meant he wasn’t in a place to deal with extra sound. Besides that, if he was in his place and someone had told _him_ that, he probably would have bitten them.

As he wrapped up the needle and thread and put them back in his pouch, he watched his bro’s expression slacken and his breathing even out. At least he wasn’t screaming and writhing anymore. That had to be good, right?

He’d seen him do stuff like this before. When he got his ears back, when he got pain back, he’d wanted to lie still a lot, too. There were other times, too. At the moment, he couldn’t remember all of them, but all that mattered was that it had happened, right? It wasn’t something that just now started happening.

 _Take your time, bro_. He imagined himself running a hand over his shoulder, though he knew doing it for real wouldn’t be a good idea right now.

“Is he all right?” Tahomaru wiped his mouth as he approached, voice low, gaze averted.

Dororo nodded. “I think he will be.” At this point, he knew he preferred to get that information from his brother directly, but Hyakkimaru wasn’t exactly in a position to give it right then.

Thankfully, for now at least, it was enough. Tahomaru took a place near him, but not within striking distance, and sat down. For a moment, he surveyed his brother’s back. The skin was still red where the false spine had pushed out, but it had already knitted itself back together even as the fabric of his kimono hung in tatters around it. Which was probably a good thing, considering Tahomaru still looked a bit lightheaded. Not to mention, if it hadn’t healed on its own, their chances of getting big bro to a doctor who could help with that kind of thing didn’t look too good.

Tahomaru let out a shaky exhale before reaching forward. Dororo gasped and started to grab his arm back. But just before he reached him, Tahomaru’s finger hooked around something else and pulled it away, and Dororo followed his gaze to look at it.

It looked like a series of wooden spools, almost, two thin wires running through them. Sort of like fishing lines, when he looked at them. He and Tahomaru shared a look. _That_ had been inside him? Had he even known it was there? Had it been hurting him before, and he just hadn’t known how to tell them? But for Tahomaru, there was something else, too. A sort of recognition, pieces finally coming together. _So that’s what that was_.

 At any other time, Dororo would have suppressed a giggle. Had he really spent  _that ****_ **** ****much time thinking about it?

After another couple of minutes or so, Hyakkimaru still hadn’t moved from his position. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all save for the rise and fall of his chest. Which was fine, this had happened when he’d gotten his ears back, but…if anyone knew Maimai-Onba had gone to the lake, then it wouldn’t be a good idea for them to be there when they came looking for her.

It might not be a bad idea to check on him. Just to see if they would need to move him.

But just as Dororo started to reach for him, there was a sound of footsteps approaching and Tahomaru shoved him behind him, crouching in front of Hyakkimaru and drawing the tanto he had kept hidden. Dororo bit back a yelp, bracing so he wouldn’t crash on top of his big bro. He looked up just as the approaching figure spoke.

“I thought I might find you here.” Sabame. Wonderful.

Tahomaru felt Dororo shifting into a defensive position behind him. It wasn’t too much to hope that his elder brother would be able to come out of this if things got worse, was it?

But Sabame held up his hands, showing he was unarmed, and stopped where he was. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to harm you. But you won’t be able to stay here.”

There was a gasp behind him. Dororo was looking straight over him, and Tahomaru followed his gaze to a distant, flickering glow.

Sabame nodded. “When my mind cleared, I set my villagers to work putting out the fires, but they’ve already spread to some of the houses nearest to the shed where…” He paused, trying to force down a pained expression. “Some of them might be coming here shortly. They’re already suspicious of what ended La…Maimai-Onba’s protection, and I don’t want you in their path if they figure it out.”

“So where are you proposing we go? My brother isn’t exactly in a condition to walk away right now.” Tahomaru snapped. His tone was far too short to use with a village lord, but he knew where this kind of conversation usually led. There was no point in playing at pleasantries.

To his credit, Sabame only nodded. “Take your brother to my house. Go over the hill through the forest. My villagers won’t see you that way.”

“And how can we be sure you won’t feed us to the demon’s children? There were bound to have been survivors.” Tahomaru could practically hear all of his training screaming at him to quit arguing, be rational, just take the offer, _stop acting like a petulant child_. But this fact remained: his brother wasn’t in a state to fight. If he let them be lured into a trap, it would be on him right now.

Sabame sighed, his exhaustion almost visible in the air around him. “Of course. I can’t force you to take the offer. I don’t expect you to trust me after what I did to you. Use my room if you think you will be safer there, and don’t leave the trees when you’re on the hill. Just hurry. I don’t know how much time you have here.”

Dororo shifted, but made no protest, steeling his expression instead.

“Very well,” Tahomaru nodded, passing the tanto to him. It wasn’t the best option, depending on a child to defend them, but it was better than nothing.

Then he turned to Hyakkimaru. “Brother,” he whispered. “I’m going to have to move you now. You probably heard, but we’re going back to Lord Sabame’s house for a bit so you can rest away from the villagers. I’ll carry you on my back again, is that all right?”

There was no response. He didn’t expect one this soon after.

“Dororo, can you help me?” He really hoped Sabame wouldn’t volunteer. No one had before, but then, he hadn’t exactly behaved normally for any of the rest of the time they’d known him.

 “Hey, bro, I’m gonna help Tahomaru get you out of here, okay? But I’m gonna have to lift you up a little to do it. I’ll give you your cloth, too, okay? I’ll tie it on once we’ve got you in place.”

It was much harder with Hyakkimaru largely unable to respond, and with the unspoken rule to avoid touching his back at the moment limiting how they could maneuver him. Sabame’s hovering didn’t help matters either. Part of Tahomaru wanted to tell him to go away, but at least he could warn them if someone was approaching, which let him focus more fully on Hyakkimaru.

Once they had him on Tahomaru’s back, Dororo tied the cloth over his ears. Tahomaru stood and looked to Sabame, almost daring him to retract the offer. But he only nodded and pointed in the direction he’d told them to go.

They stood just a moment longer, and then they set out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up writing this one a little out of order, so parts of the original version of this existed before the previous chapter, but they have since been edited to fit with what happened. Some parts of this, like Sabame's survival, were based on what happened in the manga. I'm not quite done with him yet, of course. The bit with the spine regrowing is at least partly based on what I thought would have happened if we'd had more than a minute and a half left in the episode by the time it happened.
> 
> Part of why I chose to do the scene from Hyakkimaru's perspective was because it would be less graphic that way, but also because I hadn't really shown what the limb-regrowing was like from his perspective, and this felt like the way the scene wanted to be written.
> 
> I've got the next chapter pretty well on the way, so I'm hoping to have it edited sometime in the next few days. I'm honestly a little surprised it's come out as long as it's been thus far. I honestly thought I'd get it done in four chapters or so, but then it turned out there was a lot more story that wanted to be told.
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


	7. Of All the Souls...

They laid Hyakkimaru down on the futon, carefully turning him onto his side, slipping him out of his wet kimono. Then they worked the blanket over him so that he was mostly covered while still keeping it off his back as much as possible. He didn’t respond through any of this, but he was breathing and he wasn’t trying to curl in tighter on himself or clamp his hands tighter on his ears. Perhaps they had handled things well enough, then.

Once they had him settled, they allowed themselves to release the breath they hadn’t realized they’d been holding.

It was then that Tahomaru let himself look around. The demons may have died, but there was still something about this place that didn’t sit right with him. It was too big and too empty, and perhaps that was supposed to work to their advantage with no one around to tell them they considered his elder brother a monster and would drag him out if he didn’t leave willingly. Still, as it was, something felt wrong. More than anything, he wished Hyakkimaru could have woken up and told him it was fine.

At least Sabame’s house was quiet. Probably wouldn’t have a lot of activity with the demons cleared out. Dororo had taken the kimono and started the repair he’d wanted to do earlier, while Tahomaru stood guard. It was largely a matter of watching and waiting at this point. If he didn’t give himself something to do in that time, he knew exactly where he would end up working himself. With Dororo shaken up, he didn’t want it on him to look after the both of them.

Dororo quietly finished his repairs and then announced that he was going to hang it up somewhere to dry.

“I won’t be more than a minute,” he said.

“You’ll call out if anything is wrong?” Tahomaru asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

Dororo simply nodded before dashing off.

If he had to guess, he would have said it was probably somewhere around a half-hour since they arrived when Hyakkimaru stirred, but that he wasn’t certain because at this point, time was something like a big blur. He still wasn’t talking, but he started to turn himself over before noticing something was off and beginning to feel along his arms and shoulders, not quite confused or concerned but definitely somewhere in that vicinity.

“Ah, Dororo took your kimono to mend it. He went to hang it up, since you were soaked from the lake. He’ll be back shortly.”

He waited until he was certain Hyakkimaru had time to process what he said before venturing his next thought. “Do you remember what happened?”

And just like that, his brother’s expression shifted from nearly blank to annoyance, and he plopped himself back down with a wince, pulling the cover over his face.

For a moment, Tahomaru wasn’t sure whether to flinch or laugh. “I didn’t mean it like _that_ , brother. The demon was one of the twelve. You grew your _spine_ back. It—” He swallowed hard against the wave of nausea. “You were hurting to the point of screaming, and I know you hate that.”

He ran a hand through his hair, suppressing the urge to shudder at the memory. Because really, what he wanted to do was scream at him for trying to throw himself to the demons, regardless of whether or not either of them could have come up with another option in that moment. Things were all right, now. That was what mattered, wasn’t it?

Besides, he told himself, yelling at him wouldn’t do anything but make him clamp his hands over his ears and curl into a ball. He took a breath, then slowly let it out. “I suppose I should rephrase myself. Are you all right?”

The lump in the covers shifted in a way that might have been a nod, but might have been the opposite. This time, Tahomaru was unable to stop a shaky laugh. “Brother, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say if you cover your head.”

There was another shift. A second later, Hyakkimaru’s head appeared. This time, however, he seemed to think about it for a moment before giving a small shrug. Had he changed his mind, or had he tried to lie about being okay the first time?

“You don’t know?” He supposed that made sense. Even if he was feeling better now, it couldn’t have been pleasant, and this soon after, his body was probably still sore. Even before that…

“Do you mind if I take a look at your leg? It looked like a difficult fight, so I want to make sure…”

Naturally, Dororo picked that exact moment to reenter. “Hey, you got splashed, so give me yours, too—oh!” He stopped from where he was just about to start climbing him, turning and looking at Hyakkimaru instead. “Bro, you’re awake,” he said, trying to keep his voice down without completely stifling his excitement. “You feeling better?”

Hyakkimaru only shrugged once more. The child hovered for a moment, almost bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, probably caught between wanting to hug him and not wanting to overwhelm him a second time. Finally, their elder brother shifted enough to hold out an arm for him, trying to hide the grimace as he did so. Within seconds, Dororo had curled up next to him, tucking his face against his shoulder. If it was hurting him to let him do that, he certainly did a decent job of concealing it.

“Are you still okay with me checking your leg?” After the kind of evening they’d had, it was sorely tempting simply to curl up at his other side, but he was already starting to imagine the kinds of things that could have gone wrong with that last encounter—both Sabame and the demon moths. The last thing he wanted was to have to re-break his brother’s ankle simply because he’d let it heal wrong.

When Hyakkimaru nodded, Tahomaru folded the blanket back and winced. It was definitely a bit redder. The splint had been moved, too. And he didn’t think he would have needed his prosthetic for comparison to know that it had swollen some.

But in spite of this, and in spite of his elder brother’s tensing up and biting his lip at times, sometimes even causing Dororo to gasp as he was pulled tight against him, he couldn’t feel a break. Then was it a small one? Too small to feel? At this point, he wasn’t willing to believe he had avoided breaking it entirely.

“I’m going to splint and wrap it for you. Is that okay?” he said, dearly hoping he hadn’t missed anything major, and waiting for Hyakkimaru to nod before he started.

As he worked, Dororo told their elder brother what had happened after he’d gone still. How Sabame’s eyes had changed and his villagers were putting out the fires from his burning the shed. How he had offered his house to them, even a more secure room when they’d been wary of trusting him. His expression had been near unreadable the entire time. But he hadn’t tried to get up and hunt more of the demons, so it was probably a good sign.

Once Tahomaru had finished, they went ahead and changed the bandages around his shoulders, too, whispering apologies any time he flinched or tensed up. “Your back must still be hurting you.”

However fast it had healed initially, there was still some redness, and he’d seen how stiffly he moved even to sit up or turn over.

It wasn’t as though they were in any position to defend themselves. They had removed Hyakkimaru’s sword from his belt, so it wasn’t like Tahomaru would have had to fight off moth larvae with only a tanto, but he could already feel the exhaustion settling like weights in his bones. If there had been any, this would have been the time to attack—or even better, when Hyakkimaru had still been out of it and Dororo had gone to hang his clothing.

And yet, none had come. Had they really gotten all of them in the shed and on the lake?

Perhaps it would be safe to lie down. He moved his elder brother’s sword within arm’s reach, just in case, and, making sure Dororo’s eyes were closed, began to peel off his own damp clothing. It wasn’t unbearable, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant to sleep in. He would keep it close by in case he needed to move quickly for any reason.

Carefully, as light as possible so it wouldn’t hurt him, he tapped Hyakkimaru on the shoulder, waiting for him to turn his head towards him before asking, “Is it all right for me to sleep here? Will it hurt you if I’m here?”

For a moment, he seemed to think it over, finally tapping his own shoulder in the same spot and pointing at him.

Did he want him to try it? “If this hurts you, let me know, and I’ll move.” He wanted to make certain that was clear.

When he settled against him, he felt the flinch, but most of the tension left him shortly after. “Is this all right, then?”

He felt the light nod in response, but he didn’t have time to check and see if he was lying. Moments later, exhaustion claimed him.

* * *

When Hyakkimaru awoke, the first thing he noticed was a dull ache that hovered around his back. Dororo and Tahomaru were already awake, and Tahomaru was not in the same room as him anymore.

A second later, the thought registered and he jolted upright, instantly regretting it as pain shot through him and he folded over, trying to dull it. “Ah! Bro, are you okay?” Dororo crawled over to him.

He took a moment to breathe in and out, letting the pain subside before nodding.

“Okay,” he nodded back. “Tahomaru’s in the other room. Sabame had some things he wanted to discuss, but we didn’t think it was a good idea with you in the room. A-ah!” He flailed his hands around. “Since we didn’t know how you’d be feeling when you woke up, and we didn’t want to wake you up with it. But we can go into the room with them now.”

Was there some other reason it would have been a bad idea? At the moment, he didn’t really feel like trying to figure that out.

“Anyway, do you think you’re good to get your clothes back on? I fixed the back after you passed out.”

After a moment, Hyakkimaru nodded, letting Dororo help him into his kimono, and started trying to get up. He needed to avoid putting more weight on his ankle then necessary—push off of the knee? Use the peg of his makeshift prosthetic to step?

Seconds later, Dororo was at his side, propping himself against him. “Lean on me, okay?”

Hyakkimaru considered pointing out that Dororo barely came up to his chest, and it would be hard for him to take his full weight if he really leaned on him. But in the end, he said nothing. It wasn’t as though he _had_ to give him his full weight, and he could always make something to help him later. (Or maybe just fix his makeshift leg to add a proper foot, or at least some kind of grip. At least as close as he could manage.)

When they entered the other room, two figures stopped in the middle of their conversation, alarm, then relief surging through them. The smaller one, Tahomaru, stood and went over to him.

“Brother! Did you sleep well?” Hyakkimaru let him maneuver under his other arm, guiding him to a seated position which wouldn’t put too much stress on his leg. Some part of him registered that had been a question, and it had been for him. But at the moment, he was trying to place the other aura. Dororo had said it was Sabame, and overall, the shape seemed about right, but…

Ah. That was it. The bad aura was gone. Where his soul had been lined with flecks of red before, circling around the outside, now, it was mostly white. Though maybe it was a little dimmer than it should have been. Not quite like his mom’s would get at times, but something similar.

He hoped no one expected him to hug him.

There was a shift as Sabame turned to face him, and for a moment, he almost thought he really _would_ have to. But then instead, he spoke.

“I was telling your brother how I plan to rebuild the temple. I’ll be giving those children a proper funeral as well. It will be…” he shook his head. “I imagine it will be hard for my villagers to accept, to put it mildly. Leading them to give them up as sacrifices, and then turning around and telling them we ought to honor them instead? That she wasn’t the answer after all?”

Hyakkimaru found himself fidgeting with the edge of his clothing, trying not to look directly at him.  That dimness in his soul…It was far more uncomfortable than when it was someone he knew, and he hadn’t quite expected that.

“I’m sure you must resent them for the things they said to you. Please don’t hold that against them. I won’t make excuses for myself, but they’ve been living with the consequences of my decision, and I can’t imagine that has been easy for any of them.”

Well, it had certainly seemed like they’d had plenty of time to come to terms with it. And if they hadn’t meant what they’d said that day, then they shouldn’t have said it.

Still, he felt Tahomaru’s hand run over his shoulder, stopping just short of his back in a slight, jerky motion. He forced himself to relax, trying not to wince at the release in his spine as he did so.

“Right…” Dororo fidgeted next to him. “And…what about food? Are you guys gonna…?”

Something dimmed in both their auras right then. There was something about not having food which always did that to him, which Hyakkimaru had started to think was beyond the normal concerns around it.

“We’ll have to keep growing it, of course,” Sabame answered just a little too quietly. “It will be a lean winter, but we’ll manage to survive.”

There was something else he wasn’t saying, a tense fear just below the surface. Was it something he was supposed to have noticed?

So instead, he simply nodded. Something in his aura quieted then. Not by much, but it was still something.

“Then,” Tahomaru said, bowing slightly, “we won’t continue to impose on your resources. Thank you for your hospitality. We’ll be on our way.”

“Are you sure?” Sabame shifted, and Hyakkimaru almost wanted to squirm at the feeling of this person showing concern for them. His aura wasn’t the same as when he’d tried to feed them to the demons. He had to remind himself of that. “Your brother…I don’t want to assume, of course. My w…Maimai-Onba had said there was a demon who failed to consume him, so of course, it might be different for him, but I can’t imagine he would be recovered enough to travel so soon.”

He swallowed hard and then clenched his fingers, an almost instinctive discomfort creeping through him. “I…can.”

_I can travel. I can hear you. Don’t talk about me like I can’t._

He heard Tahomaru’s hum of affirmation beside him. “If my brother thinks he is well enough to travel, then I won’t stop him. Don’t trouble yourself over us. We will be careful.”

Sabame merely nodded. “Very well, then.”

* * *

Perhaps it was wrong to observe them as they left, but Sabame watched as the brothers spoke in low tones. The one with the false limbs—Hyakkimaru, was it?—was shaking his head in response to whatever it was Tahomaru was telling him, and the smallest of them, Dororo, gestured as best he could while propping Hyakkimaru from the right.

Whatever they had said, Hyakkimaru eventually relented, allowing Tahomaru to lift him onto his back before they walked away. He really ought to have pushed them to stay, but it was also true that they couldn’t afford to use more resources than absolutely necessary. That was what had stopped him in the end. He had to put his village first.

Beyond that, the longer they remained, the harder it would be to conceal them from the rest of the village. As much as he would have liked to believe they could accept the travelers’ role in opening his eyes, well, he knew enough of what had happened before. Even if they could accept their killing Maimai-Onba and stopping the deal, they would not be able to stomach the physical reminder of what they had done—the band of children who had looked them in the eyes and told them it didn’t matter what it had been like before, it was wrong to do.

And that was the other issue, wasn’t it? To be truthful, Sabame himself could not say he regretted _everything_. The children’s sacrifice…that, he was certain would haunt him for the rest of his days, if not beyond them. He could still remember the feel of the knife in his hand, his own body moving as if it was not his own as he poured oil over the temple and set it ablaze. Yet…he had been in control the entire time. His wi…Maimai-Onba may have been the one to suggest it, may have had some influence over him, but he could not say he hadn’t chosen to go through with it.

If Sister Jishoni met him in the night, pressing mangled corpses into his hands until he sank into the earth, he would not be able to blame her for it.

Involving his villagers had also been wrong. He would sell his soul to protect them. That would never change. But he had forced them to give up a piece of theirs as well.

Still…a piece of him grieved for the demon and her children. Had he been a mere fool, blindly loving a creature which had only seen him as a food source? The idea stung. In the end, he could not accept it, even as he knew at least part of that must have been true. And yet, a part of him still protested that they hadn’t deserved to die simply because they were ghouls.

He liked to think that odd band of brothers could understand that much, if nothing else.

As they faded from his view, Sabame turned back inside his house. _Would_ he be able to continue leading his village, now that the demons were dead? Would they continue to accept his leadership once he said they should honor Jishoni and the children, rather than considering them outsiders, only suitable as food? They had stopped him from entering the shed, but all that meant was that they hadn’t wanted him dead.

Still, they had implored his leadership even as they _must_ have been aware that Maimai-Onba’s protection was failing. That had to mean something.

He began to fold the bedding the boys had used. This place was steeped in blood. Nothing he could do would change that. There was no guarantee that the beasts would not return—though perhaps his children had hunted their numbers enough that they would not.

But for now, he would get his people through the winter. From there, if they accepted him as their leader, then he would continue to lead. If not…then, perhaps he would become a monk, serving the Buddha as repentance for what he had done. Or perhaps he would be made to answer for it with his life. Or perhaps, he would become like those travelers, wandering off in search of answers that may not exist, but which still needed to be found.

But for now, he would lead his people through the winter. What came next would not matter until then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was actually originally supposed to be called "What You Do to Survive," but then the actual stuff I wrote ended up being completely different than what I thought it would be, and the chapter that fit better with that title ended up being "From Hell's Heart."
> 
> It also had a different "epilogue" than the one I wrote with Sabame, but that one has moved to become part of a different fic I'm starting. I had wanted to give Sabame at least one POV section after the point of his release from Maimai-Onba. His fate is largely based off of the manga, with some liberties taken, while some of his thought process is based on the 2007 live action movie. I also realized that I have this odd headcanon for 2019 Sabame, where he actually genuinely believes Hyakkimaru is a demon/human hybrid. 
> 
> There are definitely some loose ends I didn't get around to tying up here, but while some may continue to be unknown, I'm planning to look at some of the others in future fics, but it didn't seem like everything would be fully wrapped up here, or even like some of the catalysts I want to explore would be fully sprung just yet.
> 
> Part of why this chapter took so long, even though I had a decent part of it written when I posted the previous chapter, is because I have a slight habit of stalling when I know I'm getting to the end of something, and it is often worse the longer I have spent with it. Having worked on this one since June....
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, my first thought for a solution to the canon episode was "Go find Godzilla and hope he wins this time," which is partly where Tahomaru's thought that his father would just find a bigger demon comes from.
> 
> Other elements of this were borrowed from various other pieces of media. At the time I saw episodes 14 and 15, I had recently seen the movie "Kyoto Inferno," and elements of the 2019 version of the Maimai-Onba Incident struck me as resembling the situation with Shingetsu village. The people are aware of what Shishio's men did to the policeman and his family, and they are aware it's wrong, but they refuse/are afraid to do anything about it and justify it with the idea that they must preserve their own lives first. Since the villagers in the 2019 version knew about the sacrifice to Maimai-Onba, I found myself wishing the idea would have been explored more, rather than resolved quickly after an episode-long reveal and summarily dismissed as, "They were fine before we showed up." 
> 
> I had also wanted to see how tossing in a character who was not present in the original timeline might affect things, particularly since the idea that it's better to sacrifice one person for everyone else is an idea he had subscribed to at one point.
> 
> I don't intend for this to turn into anything like what I did with my Transformers AU, particularly since I don't see there being anywhere near the same amount of overlap between canon and the diverging point. So I don't imagine writing a huge number of other fics quite like this one, but this had so many things I wanted to play with that I simply couldn't refuse.
> 
> I will, of course, be posting another chapter of Patchwork Family Tree soon to make up for this.
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


End file.
